Since January 1, I have been on a really strict diet and believe it or not have lost 12 pounds in three weeks! I feel great! I have always been kind of a health nut, I am a marathon runner and a cyclist and even though I still work out and do yoga on the weekends, the pounds were starting to creep up and I didn’t like it one bit. Sad to say, in this joint, you gain a pound and everyone notices. I hate to admit that I’m an “aging mediocre athlete,” but I am. Excess weight undermines my fitness and deteriorates my joints and mobility. I feel it. I’m convinced that the weight throws my body alignment off balance, causing back and neck pain. So I came up with this diet and it’s not from any books nor does it involve any pills or anything like that, I just came up with it on my own.

Basically all I did was fast for two days with just vegetable juice to give myself a kick start, and cut out all alcohol and animal by-products of any kind. I went from being a lifelong vegetarian to being a vegan! While I used to say I don’t eat anything with eyeballs, now my only exception is honey. No processed foods, no sugar, no “white” food. I also do not eat anything at all after 7:00 PM every night. That was the really hard part. My weakness is late-night snacks. I also used to go to the gym and then come home and gorge, so kicking that habit has helped a lot. As for wine, that was tough… I love it. I truly believe wine is good for you, so as soon as I calibrate my weight and fitness, I will reintroduce it back into my life. That will be glorious!

I have to admit, being a vegan is a little bit boring. I mean, I used to love cheeses, and even though they have vegan cheese, it’s not the same thing, and I miss it a lot. This diet is a lot of hard work. I bring my food into the office and feel people are snickering at me behind my back. I have always been a very disciplined and regimented person, so it’s probably a little bit easier for me than it would be for most people. I think it’s also easier to go from being a vegetarian to a vegan than it is to go from being a meat eater to a vegan. Essentially what that means is that I won’t be cashing in on the multi-million-dollar bestselling-diet-book fad – no early retirement for me.

So, if anyone knows of any good vegan restaurants in DC or has some great recipes, I am all ears. February 1 will be my first full month of being a vegan. Will I ever go back to being a vegetarian? Never say never, but doubtful. It just seems so odd to me that while our culture is so obsessed with fat… it’s unattractive and bad for your health. So, why would you eat it?

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 10th, 2008 at 10:52 am and is filed under other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.